Manufacture of hosiery.



E. A. HlRNER.

MANUFACTURE OF HOSIERYJ APPLICATION FILED AUG.Z5. 1913.

Pzitented Sept. 21, 1915.

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MANUFACTURE OF HOSIERY.

Specification of Letters Patent.

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' Application filed August 2 5, 19-13. Serial No. 786,379.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, EMIL A. Human, of Allentown, in the county of Lehigh and State of Pennsylvania, have invented cer tain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Hosiery, whereof the following is a specification, reference being had to the accompanying drawing.

My improvements relate to the manufacture of seamless hosiery, provided with heel and toe pockets fashioned'by a narrowing and widening operation as commonly practised in this country.

The improvement consists. in knitting a fashioned web as part of the instep, whereby a better fitting seamless stocking is produced.

I believe both the process of knitting which I have invented and the resulting stocking are novel.

In addition to producing a better fitting stocking, my process has the further advantage, where it is desired to knit the foot of the stocking of yarn of a different color or kind from the leg, that the yarn which has been used for the leg is prolonged down over the top of the instep farther than is the case Where the ordinary method of knitting is employed, whereby the change of knitting is not visible when the stocking is worn with an Oxford or other low shoe.

in the accompanying drawing the figure represents diagrammatically a stocking em bodying my improvements In the drawing, I have, for the sake of simplicity, illustrated the invention as-applied to mens half hose, provided with the customary ribbed top, but my invention is equally applicable to long seamless hose of any character, including childrens hosiery,

, in which the leg portion is formed of ribbed knitting.

" Referring to the drawing, the leg portion 1 of the stocking is knit in the usual round and round manner practiced in the manufacture of seamless hosiery, upon circular knitting machines. Upon reaching the course which is indicated by the line 23 59, the rotation of the machine is stopped and the formation of a heel pocket by a fashioning operation upon a limited series of the needles is begun. Let us suppose that the stocking is knit upon a cylinder containing two hundred and twenty-eight needles. One hundred and fourteen of these needles carrying the loops represented by the line 3-59, (and the similar loops on the other side of the stocking), are thrown out of action, knitting being continued by a reciprocatory process upon the remaining needles, holding the loops 23. The narrowing operation is continued throwing one needle out of action with each reciprocation until the line 6l is reached, where only thirty needles are still in operation, the others having been gradually thrown out of action by raising one at a time during the narrowing operation. Thereupon, widening commences by reciprocation of the machine, one needle being thrown into operation at each end of the reciprocation until the line 73 is reached with one hundred and fourteen needles in operation. Thus far the operation described is the ordinary process of making the heel of a seamless stocking, ex.- cept that the narrowing operation has been progressed a little farther than usual as it is not necessary to narrow until only thirty needles are left in operation. At this point, in the ordinary method of manufacturing seamless hosiery, circular knitting is resumed for the knitting of the foot or instep, and'it is at this point that my invention departs from the usual practice, for in stead of resuming circular knitting when the line 73-59 is reached, I continue the widening operation by reciprocation;

needles at either side being thrown into operation one at a time at each reciprocation, for a number of reciprocatory courses, with production of a suture 35 which forms a prolongation of the suture 43 at the side of the heel. Let it be supposed that I knit a widened web of twenty-four additional courses in this manner thus throwing in forty-eight additional needles until the line 85 is reached. At the conclusion of this widening operation, the needles hold the loops represented by the line 8-5-9, whereupon circular knitting is resumed as usual, and continued until the line 10-1112 is reached, whereupon the needles represented by the line 11-42, are thrown out of action and the knitting of the toe pocket proceeds as usual. It will be observed that this method of knitting may be practised upon the ordinary circular stocking knitter, and differs from ordinary practice in that at the conclusion of th knitting of the heel pocket, a widened web forming the lower part of the instep is knit onto a portion of the loops which are held by the inactive needles.

lateral 735-8. To do this involves a new method of manufacturing a stocking and produces a novel artlcle of manufacture.

A suitable mechanism for practising the process which I have just described-is shown in my previous Patents No. 471,220, dated March 22nd, 1892, and No. 686,070, dated November 5th, 1900, in the use of which for the purpose described, it is only necessary to maintain the drop pickers (or so-called pull-down cams), in action after the conclusion of the fashioning of the heel pocket, for the required number of further reciprocations to accomplish the knitting of the widened web. This is done by deferring the sliding of the plates which control the activity of the pickers until the widened web has been knit. It will bevunderstood that in the machine to which I am referring the butts of all of the needles are of the same length so that the drop pickers co-act with equal facility with the needles of the socalled idle set, as with those of the set employed in fashioning the heel pocket.

According to my improvement I produce a stocking which more accurately and naturally conforms to the human foot, than.

those made by the common practice of knitting in which circular knitting is resumed when the needles hold the loops represented by the line 735-9, until the foot is formed. It will be observed that in the old method the same number of knitting courses are formed along the top of the instep and toe from 9, t0 the point of the toe 15, as have been formed along the bottom of the instep and toe from 7 to 15, and yet the distance 9 to 15, is considerably less than the distance 7 to 15. This produces an unnecessary strain upon the stocking stretching the loops under the heel and the instep and producing a fullness along the curved upper edge of the in step which is avoided bymy process of knitting, in which the foot is formed in proper rectangular relation to the leg.

It is frequently desirable to knit the leg of a stocking of yarn differing in color or kind from the foot, the change taking place ,at the beginning of the formation of the heel pocket, when the needles hold the loops represented by the line 2-3'-49. In the ordinary stocking, the point 9, is so far up.

the instep that if the succeeding knittingis done with a different character of yarn, the change is visible above the top of the low shoe, whereas by my method of knitting, the point 9, where this change occurs is carried sufliciently down the instep to be covelrled by the front of an Oxford or similar s 0e.

The distinguishing characteristic of my invention is the presence of a widened web, occupying the under side of the instep in front of the heel pocket, producing the visible suture line 3+5, as a prolongation of the suture line 4r3, commonly observed at each side of the heel pocket of seamless hosiery.

It will be understood that the numerical values which I have mentioned are only by way of example, and that my invention is practised whenever the above described widened web is inserted in the instep irrespective of the number of courses knit.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. The process of manufacturing seamless hosiery which consists in knitting a heel pocket upon a limited series of needles by knitting a narrowed and widened web on said series; continuing the widening operation by increasing the series of active needles with production of a widened web under the instep; and thereupon completing the instep and toe of the pocket in the usual 2 In seamless hosiery, the combination of the fashioned heel pocket with a diagonal suture at either side, and a widened web under the instep extending up the side of the same to a suture which forms a prolongation of that at the side of the heel pocket. t

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto signed my name at Philadelphia, Pennsyl-' Vania, this twenty-first day of August 1913.

EMIL 'A. HIRNER.

Witnesses:

JAMES H. BELL, E. L. FULLERTON. 

